The system was put through various load states while system temperatures were recorded as well as power consumption and noise. Given this is a server product, it was tested with and without all four drive bays populated. The acoustic properties of the drives used are detailed below.

Test Drive Noise Summary

Drive

Vibration
1-10 (10 = no vibration)

Idle Airborne Acoustics @1m

Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB

7~8

17 dBA

Samsung F3 EcoGreen 2TB

7

15~16 dBA

WD Caviar SE16 320GB

6

18~19 dBA

WD Red 3TB

9

13~14 dBA

Our usual array of CPU performance tests was also performed but some were excluded due to hardware (the Matrox GPU) or software (Windows Server 2012) incompatibility.

Network testing was also conducted but as they are not yet part of our standard testing procedures, they are detailed later in the review.